BRITAIN’S third-biggest supermarket chain, Asda, is planning to go head-to-head with Ikea, Argos and Next in a £500m assault on the £9 billion-a-year UK furniture market, writes Jenny Davey.

The company will tomorrow launch an internet site dedicated to furniture and over the next two weeks 800,000 catalogues will be distributed in Asda stores across Britain as part of a drive to seize a 5% share of the market.

Asda has been selling a limited furniture range in 35 stores since the middle of 2005, generating sales of about £2m a year. But now the supermarket chain is targeting sales of £500m a year by 2012.

The furniture, branded George, will be pitched at the value end of the market, with two-seater sofas selling for as little as £300 — half the price of many specialist furniture retailers.

Peter Pritchard, executive director in charge of general merchandise at Asda, is leading the sales drive.

The launch in January coincides with one of the busiest months for furniture sales because homeowners often make big purchases at the start of the year.

Pritchard shrugged off suggestions that it may be an inopportune time to launch, amid mounting fears of a UK housing slump.

“When the housing market slows, people spend more improving their existing home,” he said.

In May Asda launched the George Homewares range of 2,000 home accessories and soft furnishings.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 11:36 pm and is filed under Furniture. Tags: Britain, Furniture, furniture retail, furniture retailer, furniture retailers, George, IKEA, Internet, January, online, Peter, Price, retail, Target, the Company, the Star, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.